Word Play: Imaginary languages inspired Middle-earth

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, November 15th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Before we end today, I did want to tell you about a special offer from WORLD Watch for our podcast listeners: If you sign up between now and the end of the year, you’ll receive the first three months of our video news program at no cost.

BROWN: Bring current events to life—in your living room, around your kitchen table, or in your classroom. Parents tell us that WORLD Watch sparks compassionate conversations, informed prayers, and understanding hearts. That is a gratifying thing to hear, because we really do pour into those stories, we’re intentional about provoking that in young people!

EICHER: Start your first three months on us at worldwatch.news/radio.

There is a small per-month price after the trial period, but by then you won’t even care. It’s so perfect for families who value learning together. Find out more at: worldwatch.news/radio.

BROWN: Up next, Word Play. Today, an unsurprising confession from the man behind the fantastical world of Middle-earth.

Here’s George Grant.

GEORGE GRANT: By his own admission J.R.R. Tolkien was captivated by a lifelong secret hobby. He was renowned as the avocational author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion but his vocational calling was as a linguist and an Oxford don. He was a fellow of Pembroke College as a professor of Anglo-Saxon. He was also a fellow of Merton College as a professor of English Language and Literature. His first book, published in 1922, was not a fantasy story, a prequel to his great legendarium, but an etymological glossary of fourteenth century Middle English.

Besides Anglo-Saxon and English, Tolkien was conversant in Finnish, Old Norse, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, Aramaic, Hebrew, and several Celtic and Gaelic languages including Irish, Manx, Cornish, Scots, and both medieval and modern Welsh. Of course, as an academic, he was also fluent in Latin and Greek. In his letters he expressed remorse at his clumsiness with the various Slavic languages, including Russian. But his fascination with linguistics did not end with these living languages.

On November 29th, 1931, at a meeting of the Oxford University Johnson Society, Tolkien revealed that from early childhood he had engaged in the “construction of imaginary languages in full or outline for amusement.” By this he did not mean that he had coined a few expressions, neologisms, or portmanteaus, but rather that he had built whole languages with lexicons, grammars, lenitions, and vocabularies complete with elaborate “phonetic trills and tropes.” He indulged in what he called this “new game” or “home hobby” of composing “word music” during abbreviated seasons of “limited leisure” or in “occasional thefts of time.” This was, he said, his “secret vice.”

The more than half-dozen of these sophisticated languages that Tolkien created were not, he insisted, purely philological, etymological, or grammatical exercises. Nor were they supplements designed to color the mythological worlds he had invented. Just the opposite: it was the languages that spawned the stories. Before he ever imagined Middle Earth, before there were Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Ents, Trolls, and Orcs, he was crafting the dialects, idioms, and vernaculars that they would speak. “Language,” he said, “both strengthened imagination and set the imagination leaping.” The words spawned the worlds.

But of course, we already knew that didn’t we? Tolkien was simply following the example of the one who spoke all that is seen and unseen into being. For in the beginning was the Word.

I’m George Grant.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.